Emily Eavis has explained how Glastonbury was powered entirely by renewable energy for the first time this year.
Organisers previously confirmed ahead of this year’s festival that it would be run entirely using renewable fuel.
Now, Eavis has spoken further in a new interview about they managed to achieve such a feat.
She told Access All Areas: “Being able to power the entire festival without having to rely on fossil fuels this year has been a real breakthrough, but it is the culmination of lots of baby steps that have seen us steadily increase our use of renewable energy – both from the grid as well as from our own onsite sources like our solar PV array on our cowshed roof and our anaerobic digester that turns waste cow manure into biogas.
“We’ve been trialling alternative and renewable fuels for over a decade. And after some successful trials with virgin, palm oil-free renewable HVO at the last couple of festivals, we decided to use it – in place of fossil oil-based fuel – in all our generators for this year’s festival.”
Organisers previously confirmed that the festival has avoided using any fossil fuels since 1984 and will continue to opt for solar, wind and pedal power options on the fields going forward.
Eavis has now added: “This year’s switch to renewable fuels is just another step on our journey. In the long term, we’d like to be using more renewable energy from mains power, ideally generated onsite from solar and wind, and make more use of technology like our anaerobic digester.”
She also said they are continuing to work on the carbon footprint of audience travel.
Eavis continued: “Around 40 per cent of our audience travel by public or low-carbon transport, which we’re really pleased about. We would love to see even more people arriving by train and coach, so we are working with stakeholders to improve local and national public transport infrastructure to make that possible. We are actively working to increase coach use and over the years we’ve worked with rail providers to steadily increase the number of trains – and carriages – that serve the festival.”
An exact date for the ticket sale for Glastonbury 2024 is yet to be announced, but it’s expected to take place at some point during November 2023.
Organisers also recently shared some important information for fans hoping to get tickets to the 2024 festival.
Straight after this year’s festival, which saw performances from from the likes of Elton John, Arctic Monkeys, Guns N’ Roses, Lana Del Rey, Phoenix, Queens Of The Stone Age and many more, rumours began to swirl about who might possibly be headlining in 2024.
So far, the speculations range from The 1975, Beyoncé and Harry Styles. You can find NME‘s full list of rumoured performers here.